(Bloomberg) --

The European Union agreed to provide 657 million euros ($736 million) in funding for a power cable linking up Cyprus with the European grid.

Cyprus’s electricity system has been isolated from the rest of the continent, leaving the Mediterranean island vulnerable in the event of an energy crunch, as seen in recent months. The so-called EuroAsia Interconnector will link the country to networks in Israel and Greece, then on to the rest of Europe.

The project “is of geopolitical importance,” Cyprus’s Energy Minister Natasa Pilides said in the capital, Nicosia. The EU funding will enable the construction of a section of the link from Cyprus to the Greek island of Crete, she said.

The cable is part of broader plans to connect the energy networks of the eastern Mediterranean, boosting stability of supply. Cyprus, Greece and Israel have also agreed to build a 1,200-mile pipeline to take natural gas from Israeli and Cypriot fields to Europe.

Also see: U.S. Shifts Focus to Renewable, Gas in Eastern Mediterranean

“Recent months have reminded us again how crucial a well-integrated EU energy market is for ensuring affordable energy and security of supply, as well as the clean-energy transition,” EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson said Thursday in a statement.

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